By Tom Missel
Fourteen years ago, an email from an aunt to a sister started a chain of events that culminated on a Reilly Center stage with a moment that “felt like a fairy tale.”
A young woman from a small village in Italy, who needed two chances to pass the English language exam before she could begin her freshman year, closed the student address May 19 at St. Bona-venture’s 159th Commencement with this, first in elegant Italian and then in fluent English:
“As the grand-grand-grand-grandniece of our founding friar, allow me to offer a blessing to you, my dear classmates: Congratulations and many wishes for a bright future for all of you.”
SBU’s Founding Family
Founding president of St. Bonaventure’s College, Italian friar Fr. Pamfilo da Magliano (top portrait). His grand-grand-grand-grandniece Flavia Pietrobattista, a member of SBU’s Class of 2019.
In 2006, spurred by a dead-end email she received the year before from an Italian woman named Laura Pietrobattista, then-University President Sr. Margaret Carney, O.S.F., walked the streets of the little town of Magliano Dei Marsi, searching for relatives of the man — Fr. Pamfilo da Magliano — who founded the university and served as its first president from 1859-1867.
“I noticed an elderly woman sweeping off her stoop. I approached her and asked, ‘Signora, can you help me. I am looking for the family Pietrobattista.’ With a shocked look the woman said, ‘It’s my family,’” said Sr. Margaret.
“Feeling as though I was about to faint, I said, ‘Signora, I am the president of St. Bonaventure University.’”
The woman invited her into her home, located her daughter Laura — who had emailed the president in 2005 but never replied to Sister’s response — and over the next three hours Sr. Margaret met 20 members of the Pietrobattista family.
One of the youngest Pietrobattistas was 10-year-old Flavia.
Two years later, 21 family members came to Allegany to celebrate the university’s 150th anniversary.
“I was really excited to come here the first time with my parents,” said Flavia, who graduated in May, magna cum laude, with a degree in international studies and a minor in international business. “Even the architecture of the university reminded me a lot of Italy. It felt like home.”
Four years later, she visited the area again with her sister, Giulia, and realized, “I really wanted to come study here.”
Unable to pass the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) on her first attempt after her senior year of high school, Flavia came to St. Bona-venture in the spring of 2015, not as an official student but for a trial run, to sit in on classes to work on her English skills and get acclimated to campus life.
She spent half her time on campus, and half with Bob and Kim Donius at their home in nearby Alfred.
The Doniuses were on the pilgrimage when Sr. Margaret met Flavia in 2006, and had become good friends with her parents over the ensuing years. Bob teaches in the Department of Theology and Franciscan Studies, and was SBU’s vice president of University Ministries for nine years.
Language was the highest hurdle Flavia had to get over, but a deep desire to master English enabled her to pass the IELTS (International English Language Testing System) exam so she could get her student visa to enroll at Bona’s in the fall of 2015.
“One of the challenges in learning a foreign language is becoming unafraid to make a mistake,” Donius said, “but because Kim (Donius) knows Italian and has taught it, she was able to say to Flavia, ‘Don’t worry about making mistakes.’ … It was a joy to see her flourish, and she’s really become a scholar of the language.”
Her Extended Bonaventure Family
The willingness of the Doniuses, empty-nesters with four grown children, to open their home to Flavia played a vital role in her success at Bonaventure.
“Once I saw how Kim and Bob just naturally took her in as part of the family, it made all the difference in the world,” Sr. Margaret said. “She not only had a place to go, but they were that mentor, that friend, that go-to person she could talk with if things weren’t going well. And they didn’t do it out of obligation, they were happy to do it. …
Flavia Pietrobattista is pictured with Bob and Kim Donius (center) and her sister Giulia.
“Seeing how far she has come, and watching her walk down the aisle at Commencement, I was overwhelmed,” she said. “It was like a fairy tale.”
Flavia is indebted to the Doniuses for opening their home, and their hearts, to her.
“They’ve meant a lot to me. They helped me get through the whole process to get here, writing recommendation letters, letting me live with them for the first six months, keeping a room for me the entire four years when I wanted to visit,” Flavia said. “They are just like my parents.”
Bob Donius said Flavia’s parents were overwhelmed with joy Commencement weekend, not only watching their daughter give the student address, but for all the support she received during her time at Bonaventure.
“I really got choked up during the Baccalaureate Mass hearing that line in the Bonaventure Blessing song about the founders,” Bob said. “I really felt like we wanted to do this for Pamfilo. He sacrificed so much to come to the United States and, 160 years later, we got to be part of seeing one of his family members benefit from his sacrifice.”
The reverence the Pietrobattistas have always had for Fr. Pamfilo — the family has some of his textbooks, an oil portrait of him sent from America, and a marble plaque on the house announcing the place of his birth — has not been lost on Flavia.
“I feel his presence all the time,” she said. “The portrait of him in the Quick Center with all of the other university presidents — every time I pass by, I just need to stop and look at it and thank him for this opportunity. I would hope he would be so proud of me. Even though I obviously never met him, I always feel a connection with him.”
In the end, Flavia leaves St. Bonaventure with the same feeling so many graduates have.
“The community here — the people, the professors and the friars — they really want to help people achieve what they want in life,” she said. “You’re not just a number here. They really make you feel like you matter as an individual.”
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